Chapter 10
My gut churned and the mother of all headaches arched a slicing pain behind my left eye as I woke.
Something snuffled my face, and I realized a weight was pressed to my side, leaving one arm numb.
The heat of it warmed my entire left side.
I blinked through the dark to find glowing eyes attached to a giant cat head, which rested on my chest, purring.
The vibration soothed the racing of my heart, though I gulped at the idea the cat could easily bite me in half.
“Hi?” I asked. Was it real, or some ghost thing?
The building around us stood empty and silent.
The ghosts, or wavering white things, had vanished.
Hiding? I sat up slowly, worried the cat would attack, but it kept low to the ground, pressed to my side.
The door gaped wide open, a strange, orange haze adding light to the room. Was there daytime across the Veil?
I held out my hand to the cat, studying it. “You sort of look like a tiger, but with leopard spots?” I said out loud, more to hear my own voice than expecting a response. The cat licked my fingers and bumped them, like Peanut Butter when he wanted scratches.
“Is it okay to pet you?” I asked as I reached for an ear and gave it a good scratch. The cat chuffed at me and pressed into my touch. “Okay, guess petting the giant kitty is okay. I always knew I’d die saying, ‘Here kitty, kitty.’”
The cat rose to its feet, giving a long body stretch and nudging my shoulder.
“Up? Okay.” I climbed to my feet, shaky. The migraine made me wince. “Don’t suppose you have some aspirin? My head is killing me.”
The cat slid along my side, leaning into me until we both made it out the door. The light from outside was the flashing of the lights on top of an SED SUV. Victor, the dick vampire, leaned against it, looking annoyed.
“Bitten by anything?” he asked as the cat nudged me forward.
“Uh, no. I don’t think so.”
“Good.” He opened the door to the backseat. “Get in. I’ll drive you back across.”
I slid into the vehicle, hoping he wasn’t planning to take me home for his family’s evening meal.
My giant kitty friend joined me, crowding me into the far seat.
I clipped my seat belt and wondered if he needed one too.
Victor got into the driver’s side of the car as the cat slipped down to the floor at my feet, leaving his head on my lap, purr loud and vibrating on my thigh.
I petted him absently, as I watched Victor steer us out of the Veil.
“I didn’t think I ran that far,” I said, then felt my cheeks get hot. My first fucking day as SED and I’d run from the spooks. How useless was I turning out to be?
“Every new tear shifts the way the worlds merge. You enter one place but wind up in another. It takes half a decade before the tears lead you to where you expect,” Victor answered. “What did you encounter?”
I shook my head, not willing to answer because I knew something was messing with me, but the fear that rose from that cackle made my blood run cold.
The sound carved out something inside of me I couldn’t describe; terror, like I’d never felt, and more.
The cat chittered something and Victor raised a brow as he drove us up onto the highway and back toward the new split.
I’d been a long way from where I started.
“Angel wants to know what you were following.”
What? I looked at the big cat. This was Angel? When I met his gaze, those deep, soulful brown eyes were the same, though kitty-shaped. I sucked in air, hand frozen in his fur, worried I was offending him or something. “Angel?”
He chuffed, and head-butted my hand.
I gave him more scratches. “You can understand his cat language?”
“I’ve had his blood. We can speak mind to mind.”
That gave me pause. “Do I want to know?” I asked Angel instead of Victor. He bumped my hand with his head. “How aware is he in this form?”
“He has instincts and abilities that match a leopard, but his mind will always be human. Our link helped me find Angel, who had already tracked you down by scent. I’d say it’s useful.” Victor pulled the car up to park beside ours at the crime scene. “Did any dead people talk to you inside?”
“Other than you?” I asked.
“I’m not dead, obviously. You’ll find most of the true dead can’t cross the Veil, even at a tear. They are on one side or the other, and once they cross, they can’t go back.”
True dead. I needed to look up what that really meant. “I heard a giggle.”
“And saw child handprints,” Victor clarified. “Merrill only gets audio. But you saw prints Angel couldn’t?”
“Yes.” Was that someone messing with me, too? “I, uh…ran into something on the other side.” I glanced down at my belt, missing both my new gun and taser. “Tried to slow it down.”
“You don’t know what it was?”
“A giant shadow thing. Does that narrow it down?”
“Sadly, no,” Victor said as he got out. “I retrieved both your weapons, and your discarded gear. You’ll need replacements.”
I flinched at the idea that, my first day, I’d already cost them equipment, but Victor waved at me as I opened the door. Angel climbed over me and out.
Angel waited beside the car for me to get out.
I closed the door and followed them to the store, dreading going back inside.
Why? Because I feared it was all some elaborate joke on the new guy?
Or because whatever I saw was real and meant I really was some sort of variant now.
Would they even let me back in without my gear?
No one stopped us as Victor slipped through the door ahead of us, holding it for Angel, who kept pressed to my side.
All of the regular cops were gone, leaving the place lousy with SED vehicles and uniforms. I recognized Wade right away.
He held some sort of scanning device up.
A tall, dark-haired man was next to him.
My head hurt from the light, and I’d need to treat the pain before it left me immobile, but I hoped to finish the scene first. I stepped inside and realized it was still light out. Victor had been outside.
“The sunlight doesn’t hurt you?” I asked as Victor stepped around me.
“I’ve had Angel’s blood. Shifter blood has a lot of benefits.” He threw me an annoyed glare and made his way back to the kids’ area.
Were they lovers? Romance novels made the vampire thing sexy.
And Victor was attractive if you liked the tall, dark, and snobby sort of guy.
Angel nudged me again and headed toward the back.
I sucked in a deep breath, clenched my fists, and made my way forward, expecting teasing or at least judgment, but no one glanced our way.
Wade appeared at our side, his friend with him, lean and a bit pale. Was he a vampire, too? “Did we miss any prints?” he asked, pointing to a new set of marks next to the still-glowing handprints.
“You can see them?” I asked.
“With this.” The other man held up a scanner of some sort. “Specializes in plasma signatures. It took some tuning to get it lined up, but this change will be useful.”
“This is Bobby,” Wade said. “Our equipment genius.”
I looked around, and all the prints were highlighted. “There were some by the bathroom, and the stock area. Oh, and outside, by the trash bin.”
“On it,” Wade said. Bobby followed close behind. Victor crouched by the body.
“Can we move it now?” he asked, sounding annoyed that he had to ask.
Angel chuffed at my side. I glanced down at him, but he was focused on Victor. Were they doing the mind-to-mind thing? I didn’t really want to think about the sharing blood thing.
“I’m not seeing anything else I need,” I answered, uncertain if they cared what I thought. “Until we get the ME report. I may have more questions then.”
Victor nodded, and his team began bagging up the body.
I must have gone nose-blind shortly after entering, ‘cause I didn’t smell much other than blood until they moved him, then I gagged and walked away.
“And your nose is better than mine, right? Gross. So gross. The smell is the worst part of dead bodies.”
Wade reappeared. “Did you walk the whole place?”
“No. I was following a child’s giggle.”
He stared down at me, head tilted as if surprised by my admission. “You heard something and got visuals? Anything else?”
“I chased a kid outside. Thought it was one of the zombies I encountered at the daycare before I was hospitalized, but couldn’t get close enough. It was fast, and then I ended up on the other side of the Veil.”
“Zombies aren’t that fast,” Bobby muttered, frowning as he made his way toward the back again. “Out through the back door, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Take a walk around. Let me know if we missed anything else. Don’t leave the building,” Wade said. His gaze landed on Angel. “Stick with him. Your nose beats mine any day.”
“Do I have to worry that I smell?” I asked as I headed toward the opposite wall, planning to walk aisle by aisle. Having Angel pressed to my side kept me from unraveling into the mother of all panic attacks.
“Everyone has a distinct smell,” Wade offered.
“That wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement for the strength of my deodorant,” I grumbled, searching the shelves for anything unusual. “Don’t suppose you have any ibuprofen? I left my kit in my locker. My head is pounding.”
Wade stripped off his gloves and dug a couple of packets out of his pocket. I’d never been so grateful to dry swallow a few pills. He waved away my thanks and pointed at Angel, who chuffed and nudged me toward the furthest set of shelves.